Lycanthropic

I haven’t been blogging so much recently and that’s because I’ve been busy writing a novel. That novel is now almost ready for publishing, so I can tell you a little more about it.

My writing project started with a word. The word was lycanthropic and it popped into my head almost exactly one year ago. The word comes from the Greek lycanthrope, a synthesis of lykos or wolf, and anthropos, meaning human. You might be more familiar with the word werewolf, which comes from the Old English word wer, meaning man.

Cool word, I thought. It would make a great title for a novel about werewolves. I would totally read that book. I checked on Amazon, but no one had written such a book.

A month passed. Still no one had written the book. Someone should really write that book, I thought.

Another month passed. Still nothing. I should really write that book myself.

I started writing.

My idea was to do for werewolves what books and films like I Am Legend, Night of the Living Dead, The Walking Dead and World War Z had done for zombies. In other words, I wanted to change them from supernatural creatures into victims of a contagious disease. A contagious disease would spread, and then what? Bad stuff, obviously.

Now, almost exactly a year after the word first came to me unbidden, the book is finished. Huge thanks to James Pailly and Michael Smith for their patience and help in reading my draft versions. Monstrous thanks to my wife Margarita Morris for her input.

The next step is to get a book cover. Then the book can finally be published.

But this is just a step on my journey. The novel is the first in a series. So I’ll need to write another, and then another. A lot can spring from a single word.

12 responses to “Lycanthropic”

Well done, I not surprised that you’ve not been able to spend much time blogging. Writing a book takes a massive amount of time.
A couple of questions. I assume you’re self publishing. Any thoughts on how you are going to market yor book?
Are you publishing it as an e-book over, for example, Amazon KDP?
The Science Geekhttp://www.thesciencegeek.org

I plan to put the book up for pre-order with a launch date of 1 January 2018.

I’ll be publishing the ebook through Amazon KDP exclusively so that KIndle Unlimited (KU) customers will be able to read the book for free. The paperback will be published by CreateSpace so it will be sold by most online retailers and be available for customers to order in-store. By using a CreateSpace ISBN, the book also becomes available to libraries. I have researched the options extensively and I believe that this combination gives me the widest possible distribution.

Some indies prefer to publish “wide” (i.e. on Kobo and other ebook retailers) but this would mean that KU customers won’t have access to the book. For indies, exclusivity to Amazon currently offers the best prospect for connecting to readers.

Some indies publish the paperback version with IngramSpark with a view to being stocked by bricks-and-mortar booksellers. However I believe that this goal is impractical (although not impossible) for indies, because bookstores such as Waterstones only buy books on a “sale or return” basis. For an indie publisher, the risk is too great.